5 ms·

Cous have also ended up in the same place by just gradually internalizing the cost and higher for an effective ban - not unlike a carbon tax.

AlotOfReading 6y ago
One of the criticisms of RoHS was that even the companies that had exemptions were unable to exercise them because factories found it uneconomical to maintain separate production lines. If the EU had simply raised the cost, it would have been added onto the price and nothing significant would have changed.
- tuatoru 6y ago
  A lesson for proponents of a carbon tax. perhaps?
  - maxerickson 6y ago
    Why? If the tax attaches at point of production, the incentive is to use the output that is cheaper including the tax, or the best mix possible, shifting to less consumptive processes over time even if they can't meet demand at the start.
    - tuatoru 6y ago
      It depends on the visibility of the tax to the final consumer, and its long run salience. Take water meters, a current topic in NZ. Some cities don't have them, some do. When I was last in the industry (over a decade ago) research had tended to show that after introduction of meters (usually with price rises) there was a reduction in per-household demand. But over the course of a few years this reduction vanished: households were back on their old water consumption trend. Water wasn't a big enough cost to matter either way. (Commercial consumers have always been metered, so there isn't a lot of evidence there. Those I looked at had good reasons for using as much water as they did.) If producers have to absorb the tax, things will probably work out as you say. If they can pass it along without losing much demand, maybe not.
      - lotsofpulp 6y ago
        I disagree that it has anything to do with visibility of the tax. If the government's goal is to reduce water usage, then all they have to do is increase the tax. If the usage doesn't go down, then increase the tax even more. At some point, the people paying for the water be unable to afford consuming the same amount of water, whether or not the tax is explicitly shown is irrelevant. If producers can absorb the tax, then keep raising the tax until the water consumption goes down.
        zbrozek 6y ago
        Or you'll get more-and-deeper wells and a race to the bottom of the aquifer, as you see in California's central valley. And of course folks will advocate for tiers and caps and exemptions and incentives and all manner of other mess to try and further distort the market to match their notion of fairness. Then everybody buying water will need to be a spreadsheet ninja to figure out how not to go broke while still managing to bathe.
        maxerickson 6y ago
        Water there costs 0.05 cents a gallon. (I've not made a typo, it's ~$150/acre-foot for the expensive irrigation water) So $0.05 to bathe. I think "market" effects aren't causing the problem.
        zbrozek 6y ago
        The grandparent comment is advocating for sufficient levels of taxation to substantially change behavior, and I'm cautioning against unintended consequences of such a policy. I don't follow where the current cost of water is part of that discussion, but I welcome clarification.
        lotsofpulp 6y ago
        It’s always a possibility that people will try to evade taxes (or any other rules they don’t like), but I don’t see why that’s relevant.

AlotOfReading 6y ago

One of the criticisms of RoHS was that even the companies that had exemptions were unable to exercise them because factories found it uneconomical to maintain separate production lines. If the EU had simply raised the cost, it would have been added onto the price and nothing significant would have changed.

tuatoru 6y ago
A lesson for proponents of a carbon tax. perhaps?
- maxerickson 6y ago
  Why? If the tax attaches at point of production, the incentive is to use the output that is cheaper including the tax, or the best mix possible, shifting to less consumptive processes over time even if they can't meet demand at the start.
  - tuatoru 6y ago
    It depends on the visibility of the tax to the final consumer, and its long run salience. Take water meters, a current topic in NZ. Some cities don't have them, some do. When I was last in the industry (over a decade ago) research had tended to show that after introduction of meters (usually with price rises) there was a reduction in per-household demand. But over the course of a few years this reduction vanished: households were back on their old water consumption trend. Water wasn't a big enough cost to matter either way. (Commercial consumers have always been metered, so there isn't a lot of evidence there. Those I looked at had good reasons for using as much water as they did.) If producers have to absorb the tax, things will probably work out as you say. If they can pass it along without losing much demand, maybe not.
    - lotsofpulp 6y ago
      I disagree that it has anything to do with visibility of the tax. If the government's goal is to reduce water usage, then all they have to do is increase the tax. If the usage doesn't go down, then increase the tax even more. At some point, the people paying for the water be unable to afford consuming the same amount of water, whether or not the tax is explicitly shown is irrelevant. If producers can absorb the tax, then keep raising the tax until the water consumption goes down.
      - zbrozek 6y ago
        Or you'll get more-and-deeper wells and a race to the bottom of the aquifer, as you see in California's central valley. And of course folks will advocate for tiers and caps and exemptions and incentives and all manner of other mess to try and further distort the market to match their notion of fairness. Then everybody buying water will need to be a spreadsheet ninja to figure out how not to go broke while still managing to bathe.
        maxerickson 6y ago
        Water there costs 0.05 cents a gallon. (I've not made a typo, it's ~$150/acre-foot for the expensive irrigation water) So $0.05 to bathe. I think "market" effects aren't causing the problem.
        zbrozek 6y ago
        The grandparent comment is advocating for sufficient levels of taxation to substantially change behavior, and I'm cautioning against unintended consequences of such a policy. I don't follow where the current cost of water is part of that discussion, but I welcome clarification.
        lotsofpulp 6y ago
        It’s always a possibility that people will try to evade taxes (or any other rules they don’t like), but I don’t see why that’s relevant.